222) Jeff Dunham

At last we've finally reached the end of our tireless nationwide search to combine the painfully unfunny topical "humor" of Dane Cook with the repugnant, offensively blatant racism of racists*! And all of it comes wrapped in America's long-beloved #1 entertainment format, bad ventriloquism!

*Unless you've found some non-racist way to interpret Achmed the Dead Terrorist...?


Ohh, hahahahahaha!! And look! He's wearing a turban! Just like real brown people I'm unjustly afraid of!

221) Famewhore Parents

Now that Jon & Kate are famous and their show is probably ending, reality TV executives are scrambling around to find the next wacky family who will capture America's attention and then turn into shrill, evil, baby-devouring monsters. Might I suggest two possible candidates from this week's news cycle who are evidently already to the shrill, evil, baby-devouring stage?

First up, we have "Nic," mom to an infant son and the sort of person who takes anything going wrong in her life as a personal affront. She posted a lengthy rant on her blog about how TSA agents at the Atlanta airport freaked out on her when her son's pacifier clip set off the metal detector. She claimed that she was separated from her kid, held for a long time (thus almost missing her flight), and was so stressed/agitated by being separated FROM HER SON!!!1! that she was forced to take her "emergency Xanax." [Note: you will need at least one emergency Xanax to keep your head from hurting while reading her cray cray post.] While many of us who have dealt with airport delays and incompetence felt for Nic and her situation, TSA was not amused. Their official blogger, Bob (yes, they have an official TSA blog) posted security cam video of the entire incident and basically showed that Nic is a big ol' faker.

But Nic is far from the biggest faker of the week. That honor goes to Richard Heene of Colorado. Heene, an "amateur scientist" who was building a giant balloon in the backyard. One of his kids, Falcon (yeah, seriously) allegedly got in the balloon and started flying away. Like any good dad, Richard called the media and then later deigned to call 911. The "Balloon Boy" story captivated the 24 hour news cycle. Then, the balloon came down. Then, there was no one in it. That's because little Falcon was safely at home, where he'd been the whole time. As for poppa Richard, he's apparently been trying to shop a reality show about his family to production companies and networks. Plus they were on that show "Wife Swap." Twice.

In the following clip, we learn why it always backfires when famewhore parents try to drag their kids into their retarded schemes. While being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Falcon lets it slip that the whole incident was "for the show." You know Octomom is so pissed she didn't think of this first.



[Oh, also, Falcon farts about 40 seconds into the interview. We would never tell you that and embarrass a poor child in that way, though, obviously.]

220) Baseball Announcer Malapropisms and Other Verbal Gaffes

What would expect Dennis Eckersley, Chip Caray, David Wells, and Buck Martinez to know a bunch of stuff about? If you said "stuff about baseball", then you'd be (in most cases) accurate (except Martinez, who only knows stuff about baseball as it's played in the bizarre parallel dimension known as Buck Martinez Land).



If you said any variation of the following...

-Verbal communication

-Grammar

-The organization of English language

-Word meanings

...you'd be wrong


No, seriously: the guy on the right is paid to say things to you live on national television. That's his *job*. This is the world you live in.

Take these couple of recently-uttered gems from yesterday's 10-plus hours of postseason day one coverage:

• "His heartbeat must be pounding" - Of course, most of us are familiar with the sensation of our hearts pounding. Our heartbeats, which themselves are resultant of the pounding of the heart doing the pounding-level beating, do not themselves pound.


• "Whether the Twins lose or they win this game or not..." - This is not so much the product of an inadequate grasp on language as it is the result of someone's overambitious desire to continue speaking, even when thoroughly unnecessary. Those of use with basic reasoning skills needed only to hear the first four words of this phrase followed by the eigth and ninth words in order to extract the intended information.


• "That's really tantamount among their concerns right now" - Errr...that's really the equivalent measure of...the...among...their concerns right now? Huh. Okay. I mean, I'd have gone with "paramount". Y'know...so that my sentence would have made sense? But sure, cool. Whatever.

Look to our Twitter feed for more malapropisms and linguistic stress fractures as we hear them.

219) People Who Call Champagne "Champers"

Contrary to popular belief, not everything needs a cutesy nickname. Sure, when people are little it's sweet to give them little singsongy nicknames, but they can't last forever. For example, "Paulie-waulie" may make for an adorable six-year-old, but if he's not a plain old Paul by age 12 or so you can pretty much guarantee the dude isn't getting laid, ever.

Sometimes, things are so great that no nickname is required. Shoes are just shoes, not shoesies. Chocolate is just chocolate, not chocowocko. And champagne is just champagne, not "champers." If you aren't mature enough to know that the yummy-tasting bubbly stuff in the skinny glass has a nice proper French name, then you aren't old enough to be drinking it.

Note #1: The only exception to the "It's called Champagne" rule is if you reference this classic SNL sketch with Christopher Walken in it:



Note #2: The other person who runs this blog got all married or whatever this weekend, and while there was champagne served, he is not friends with lame people who mispronounce the name of the magical bubbly candy water and this post wasn't inspired by anyone in particular. So, like, congrats and stuff, dude.